Blood on the Gallows

Chapter 25

The woman was obviously disturbed, and John McBride let it go. ‘‘Can I walk you back to your village?’’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘‘No, that is not needed.’’ She touched his chest lightly with her fingertips and looked into his eyes. ‘‘Listen, senor, what I am about to tell you might be important or it might not be. It may help you bring down Jared Josephine and his nest of murderers and thieves or it may not. Two miles to the north of Josephine’s town is the Capitan Pass. To the west of where the pass first begins to cut into the mountains, there is a house that sits by itself, hidden by trees. Go there, talk to the woman you find at the house. She has a baby with her.’’

Thunder rumbled in the distance and the branches of the cottonwoods by the stream shook. ‘‘What can this woman tell me?’’ McBride asked.

‘‘Maybe nothing, maybe much. Go there. Talk to her.’’

Without another glance, the woman turned on her heel and walked back toward the road. McBride stood and watched her go, the rain hissing around him. He turned and looked down at the grave.

‘‘I’ll get Harlan for you, Alarico,’’ he said. ‘‘Him at least, and maybe the rest of them. That’s a promise.’’

He gathered up the reins of the mustang and stepped into the saddle. But when he reached the bend of the wagon road, Saul Remorse was not there.

McBride sat his horse and his eyes searched the high country around him. He saw only an empty wilderness of mesas streaked with bands of red and yellow, blue, distant mountain peaks and hanging meadows where juniper, piñon and wildflowers grew, all this behind a shifting mantle of rain.

Where was Remorse?

Maybe a tracker like old Bear Miller could have found him, but McBride had no such skill. He settled for a guess—that Remorse had grown tired of waiting and had headed for Rest and Be Thankful. He was probably idling on the trail, waiting for McBride to catch up to him.

That explanation was as good as any, and McBride left the wagon road and took a dimmer trail that angled northwest toward town. He rode through slanting rain, the thunder he’d heard at the grave still a distant booming. The ground here was about five thousand feet above the flat and rising. Thickets of trees and huge, tumbled boulders crowded the trail on both sides of him, and a few miles to the north the slopes of the Capitan peaks were forested with oak and ponderosa pine. Higher, yellow bands of aspen trembled in the wind and above those, spears of fir and spruce spiked the sky.

McBride saw no sign of Remorse on the trail and when the rooftops of Rest and Be Thankful came in sight he drew rein and considered his options.

Remorse was probably in town, but the reverend could take care of himself. In any case, he wouldn’t make any gun moves until McBride joined him.

Capitan Pass was just a couple of miles to the north, and the Mexican woman had said someone was there who might be able to help him. Did she really know something about Jared Josephine that could help bring him down? It was not yet noon, plenty of time to talk to the mystery woman and get back to town well before dark.

McBride made up his mind. He’d ride to the pass and hear what the woman had to say. That is, if she’d talk to him. A big, rough-looking man riding an ill-favored, eight-hundred-pound mustang might not be the most welcome of guests for a lone female.

Well, maybe he could put that ol’ McBride Irish charm to work—if he could still find it.

McBride studied the entrance to the pass, which yawned open in front of him like the doors of a great stone cathedral.

A mile high, on the cold, gray rocks of the flanking mountains, a rain-lashed wind tossed the branches of the aspens and on the higher plateaus the spruce bent and straightened, then bent again in an elegant minuet. Against an iron gray backdrop, massive black clouds scudded over the peaks, but the thunder had fallen silent for now.

McBride rode closer to the pass, then swung west, skirting the foothills. The woman had told him he’d see a solitary house hidden by trees. He saw nothing but shadows in the arroyos and impenetrable, dark olive screens of juniper, mesquite and piñon.

Then he smelled wood smoke, just a fleeting tang in the wind.

Reining up the mustang, McBride lifted his head and let the morning talk to him. There it was again, the musky odor of burning wood. His eyes searched the foothills and after a few moments he saw a drift of smoke rising behind a stand of trees, hanging briefly in the air until it was shredded by wind and rain.

He kneed the mustang toward the trees, swung wide around them, and almost rode into the side wall of a log cabin. McBride made his way to the front and drew rein. The cabin had two curtained windows and a well-made pine door with a small glass panel. A pole corral stood a ways off and there was a lean-to barn and a few other small buildings. A water pump was situated near the front of the cabin where it would be handy, overhung by the branches of a solitary cottonwood. The place looked homey and well cared for, the only jarring note a freshly painted sign next to the pump that read:

PRIVATE PROPERTY

KEEP OUT

McBride suddenly felt exposed out there in the open. The woman who lived in the cabin obviously did not care for visitors and she might be unneighborly enough to back up her warning sign with a Sharps big fifty.

He sat his saddle in the rain, thinking that maybe he should just ease on out of there and return another day when the gal was in a friendlier state of mind.

But McBride never got a chance to act on that thought.

Suddenly a young woman appeared in the doorway, a Volcanic thirty-shot carbine in her hands. The beautifully crafted rifle did not match the ugly expression on her face.

‘‘What do you want?’’ she demanded. The woman was dark, Mexican and very pretty. The brass-framed, .38-caliber Volcanic was rock-steady, pointed right at McBride’s chest.

He touched his hat brim, slowly. ‘‘Name’s John McBride, ma’am,’’ he said, smiling, hoping his charm would shine through.

‘‘Never heard of you, now be off,’’ the girl said, moving the rifle muzzle upward only an inch to make her point.

Realizing that some fast talking was in order, McBride said quickly, ‘‘Senora’’—suddenly he realized that he’d never asked the old woman her name, but it must surely be the same as her son’s—‘‘Senora Garcia said I should talk with you.’’

‘‘What about?’’

To McBride’s relief she showed a sudden flare of interest and he took a wild stab at an answer. ‘‘Jared Josephine.’’

Something happened in the girl’s eyes that told McBride he’d struck a nerve.

‘‘How do you know Beatriz Garcia?’’ the girl asked.

‘‘I knew her son, Alarico. He saved my life a while back.’’

Now recognition dawned in the girl’s dark eyes. ‘‘You were the gringo in the jail, the one who tried to save the shepherd boy.’’

McBride nodded. ‘‘Yes. I’m becoming pretty famous for that total failure.’’

The woman lowered her rifle. ‘‘My name is Julieta Milena Santiago. You can put your pony up in the barn, then please to come inside.’’

McBride did as he was told and returned to the cabin. The little house was plainly furnished but clean and to McBride’s joy a pot of coffee simmered on the stove. Off to one side, near a window, was an obviously store-bought cradle, an unusual purchase in the West where such things were made by a male relative or by the father himself.

Julieta was replacing the Volcanic in a gun rack, but she followed McBride’s gaze and said, ‘‘He’s asleep.’’

McBride stepped softly to the cradle and glanced inside. The baby lay on his back, his upraised hands making two tiny fists. ‘‘How old is he?’’ he asked.

‘‘Just three months. His name is Simon.’’

‘‘Congratulations,’’ McBride said. ‘‘And that’s a crackerjack name. He’s a beautiful baby.’’

For a fleeting moment, he saw a wound in Julieta’s eyes; then it was gone.

‘‘Coffee?’’ she asked.

‘‘Please.’’

McBride sat at the table and set his hat beside him as the girl brought cups. She poured coffee for them both, then asked, ‘‘What did Beatriz tell you about me?’’

‘‘Nothing really, just that you had a baby and lived near Capitan Pass.’’ McBride tried his coffee, found it good, then said, ‘‘Was this your husband’s idea, to live way out here?’’

Julieta’s voice was level, cool. ‘‘I do not have a husband.’’

‘‘Sorry,’’ McBride said, frantically searching for the right words. ‘‘I just thought—’’

‘‘No need for apology. The baby is not mine.’’

Relief flooded through McBride. He had not made a mess of things, at least not yet. ‘‘Ah, so you just take care of him.’’

‘‘Yes, I take care of him.’’ The girl’s beautiful brown eyes were level on McBride’s. ‘‘I do it for money.’’

McBride could not think up an immediate comment on that, so he just nodded, appearing, he hoped, wise.

‘‘Beatriz said I could help you, how?’’ Julieta asked.

‘‘She didn’t know. She said only that maybe you could. Beatriz and I share a common goal—to get rid of Jared Josephine and everything connected to him.’’

‘‘You mean to kill him?’’

‘‘Yes, him, his son and his town marshal.’’

‘‘Get rid of everything connected to him,’’ Julieta said, almost to herself. She blinked, then nodded in the direction of the sleeping child in the cradle. ‘‘Then you must kill the baby, Mr. McBride.’’

‘‘I don’t understand.’’

‘‘What is so difficult to understand? Simon is Jared Josephine’s son.’’